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The Nanjing Massacre RESOURCES BOOK REVIEWS The Nanjing Massacre Honda’s account of the Nanjing Massacre A Japanese Journalist Confronts provides significant first-person material that could be used by teachers Japan’s National Shame and students alike. BY HONDA KATSUICHI EDITED BY FRANK GIBNEY, TRANSLATED BY KAREN SANDNESS interviews. His carefully told stories are compelling. These are not ARMONK: M. E. SHARPE, 1999 single incidents perpetrated by one or two crazy individuals. This 367 PAGES, ISBN 0765603357, PAPERBACK book tells of a wanton and massive use of terror with the intent of bringing a nation to its knees. REVIEWED BY PHYLLIS R. PARKER In Honda’s words, “Unlike the Germans and Italians, the Japanese have not made their own full onda Katsuichi’s Nanjing Massacre: A accounting of their prewar actions.” Honda’s work Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan’s has played a significant role in a textbook controver- H National Shame is not light reading nor sy in Japan where, as Frank Gibney, in the editor’s for the faint of heart. It is a searing but even introduction, describes an “apparent historical amne- account of the systematic butchery of between sia of most Japanese about the wartime misdeeds of 150,000 to 300,000 Chinese villagers and unarmed their troops.” Understandably, war is ugly, but there soldiers by an invading Japanese Imperial Army are agreed-upon restrictions to the horrors man can that had been instructed to live off the land and inflict upon man. Certainly events in the winter of have their provisions furnished “by the enemy.” 1937 –38 in China were well outside the limits sanc- Given the lack of troop supply plans, Commander- tioned by the Geneva Convention. Japan has been in-Chief General Matsui Iwani, who was later slow to acknowledge culpability, but Honda hopes hanged for war crimes, had expressly forbidden the that his book might be “thought of as a substitute for killing of prisoners; however the military atrocities something the nation itself ought to do.” And in hav- outlined in this book were clearly condoned by the ing his writings published in this edition in English, high officer corps. Honda states he wishes to go beyond mere reporting The Nanjing Massacre, which took place of facts, and to promote outside pressure on his gov- between November 1937 and February 1938, was part of a larger ernment to bring about change. In this sense, Honda calls himself an Japanese invasion and occupation of China that began with the “ardent Japanese patriot.” “Manchurian Incident” in 1931, and continued until the end of World Honda’s account of the Nanjing Massacre provides significant War II. Honda’s narrative is journalistic in style. He carefully docu- first-person material that could be used by teachers and students alike. ments this story with diary entries, photographs, soldier scrapbooks, The book is clearly written and includes helpful maps and pictures as and interviews with both Chinese victims as well as Japanese sol- well as notes on interviews. In this work, Honda makes available diers who, after many years, have wanted to confess their part in the valuable primary source materials that contribute not only to a greater atrocities. All of this is juxtaposed paradoxically with official Japan- understanding of events in China in World War II, but also offer a ese writings of the time. The communiqués back home told of sturdy context for discussion of how wars work, the role of propaganda in young soldiers who killed a bird to add to their rice meal as they war, and the use of terror in acquiring a military goal. The book fought bravely in the name of the Emperor. The first person accounts includes an index, and while a bibliography would have been of use of the same time and place graphically tell another, more horrifying in a book of this nature, this work is nevertheless well documented story of methodical and relentless slaughter of peasants who were and will be an important resource for English speaking readers. n viewed as less than human by the invading Japanese. This book grew out of earlier works by Honda, Ch¯ugoku no tabi (Travels in China) in 1972 and Nankin e no michi (The Road to Nanking) in 1987, as well as serialized articles from the Japanese PHYLLIS R. PARKER teaches World History at Rockbridge County High School in Lexington, Virginia. She has received several local, national, and newspaper Asahi Shimbun. As a journalist, Honda has written on a international awards, including an Excellence in Teaching Award through the wide variety of topics, including the Vietnam War and Pol Pot in US State Department and the American Councils for International Education, Cambodia. His interviews with innocent peasants caught in the and travel fellowships through the Keizai Koho Center (Japan), the Armonk crossfire of those events led him to turn to his own country’s wartime Foundation (Germany), the Korea Society (Korea), and the Teaching East Asia past and to the whitewashed presentation of the “Fifteen Years War” Program at the University of Colorado (China). She has contributed articles to journals on teaching about Japan and about Korea, and her book, Brazil and and, more specifically, the Nanjing Massacre. Taking advantage of the Quiet Intervention, was published in three languages. Her students and her the opening of China to reporters, Honda made the first of four work- school’s Interact Club are involved in helping rebuild a vocational school ing trips to China to trace events of World War II and collect destroyed by civil war in Sierra Leone. 65.
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